There’s no question I felt the weight of pressure on my shoulders as I charged off into the South Pacific Ocean to commence my first triathlon race since I made radical changes to my lifestyle…Just five months earlier I was charging into the same ocean, only in a different part of the world and my surf board under my arm; shooting “on location'“ for a job as a travel influencer.

It’s interesting how something more commonly labelled as mundane can seem so appealing to me - especially in compared to the day to day of my life prior to training up until that moment. My heart was pumping and life of days gone by was the last thing on my mind as I battled my way out the back of Moo’ba Beach hurdling a number of other fierce athletes throughout the first hundred metres of the 1.9 km loop before I eventually found my rhythm.

To be completely honest with you I have been slack with sharing a number of these recounts for a number of reasons - but mainly (and shamefully) the route of most of my doubts for sharing more transparently is I have been afraid to fully put myself out there, in the sense that; I feel like I have an image to uphold based on these prior beliefs and understandings that people have of me from my travel days…And now as I try to wrap my head around humanity on a deeper, more conscious level and my role and purpose within it I feel like this chapter may have led people that followed me for pre conceived ideas of me, astray somewhat. I can feel how silly that sounds now as I type these words out, but to be quite frank that’s how I felt. Anyway more of that another day, where were we?

Ah yes…Deep in the hurt locker out in the middle of the ocean scrambling through the first of three legs that make up a triathlon. I’m the kind of guy that goes all in. Since I hopped off that plane from my last job I had made a b-line for the home of triathlon in Australia - the Gold Coast. Since then it’d been nothing but consistent hit out’s day in, day out….Nothing special just consistently tapping away and luckily so; as I was feeling pretty strong as I powered my way round the buoys and back into shore in search of my bike.

Perhaps it was adrenaline, perhaps confidence in my preparation, but I felt a nice tempo and controlled effort throughout the whole ride too and my confidence was flaring - if anything I felt like I had held back from pushing on out of fear of running out of steam…I should have known that everything would eventually add up, how naive of me! 11 km into the run I don’t know if I picked subconsciously picked up sandbags at the turn around without knowing but my legs became like two stiff pieces of lead hanging from my strapping frame ;) It must have been quite a site for the spectators! Despite the heaviness in my legs, aerobically i felt great! And that’d when it began to dawn on me how incredibly powerful the mind is not only in this sport but proceeding this race, in life as well. While I could still trot along at a fairly respectable pace to get across the line in 4h 22 minutes I was still coming to grips with the mental barrier that I was pushing for the last 40 minutes…It was an experience I had never had before; literally, but strangely I loved it.

Over all an absolute epic day out and trip…As I spent the next day or so exploring such an iconic area of Australia! A mighty fine weekend away up there in the Sunshine Coast, that’s for sure.

I would also like to mention that despite that I have since moved on from the Elite Sportz crew, I couldn’t have got to this event without their guidance and support - so big thanks to Andrew, his philosophy and all the squad for the role that they played in helping me transition between lifestyles.

More to report on the racing front soon in the mean time love this clip from the moment I finished….